Paris Wedding

Paris is a lovely city and and an even more magical place to get married in and I am so thankful that I was able to be the official photographer for Mike and Melissa's wedding.

I photographed Mike and Melissa's Engagement Session in Southern California because they wanted some photos for their Save The Date invitations. They already had plans to get married in Paris and had already put a deposit down for a local photographer. We joked a little about how fun it would be if I could go to Paris with them but the discussion didn't go farther than that - until later. A few weeks later Mike and Melissa came over to my studio to view their Engagement photos and that is when they asked if I would be able to accompany them to photograph their big day in Paris. Of course the answer was a resounding YES! Having traveled all over the world my entire life, I was passport-ready and anxious to get started. Not to mention that I had already travelled pretty extensively with all my photo gear to countries like Spain, Italy and the Caribbean so I was prepared.

This image took place the day after the couple's Ceremony at The Louvre because the day of the wedding didn't allow any time to travel around the city to get the wide and iconic shots they really wanted. So, we decided that all the close-up portraits would take place on the day of their wedding and the wide shots would happen the day after so that we wouldn't have to worry about makeup, hair and not-so-sparkling-clean outfits.

This shot was taken across the Seine River and near the Jardins du Trocadéro. There are so many people and autos out in this part of the city at all times of the day that I didn't want to spend my time Photoshopping out every little distraction so I found a spot where Mike and Melissa could stand up above the street and I was laying on the ground trying to frame out the walkways. Right as I snapped this shot, someone walked by on the walkway just to the right and three pigeons flew into the air. Unfortunately, only one of the three birds flew into the scene as I took the shot but it still adds a different element to the image.

I took this photograph with a canon 24-70mm f/2.8 so that I could get the entire scene in the frame. I started off with a Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 but in order to eliminate distractions from the scene I had to back up too far, which ended up showing a cars and people walking around the Pont d'Léna bridge. You can see the roof of the Eiffel Tower Carousel, which is just across the bridge from the tower.

Very little post-processing was made to this image as it was pretty much came out like it shows. I did crop out the wing of a second bird that did end up in the shot - I found it to be very distracting to have a portion of a bird in the scene. There are many photos we took in Paris that week but this is one of my favorites because the vision I had going into capturing this shot unfolded perfectly.